Around, Here

I do not remember the last time I have read something as moving and as powerful as the introduction to Tom Rademacher's book. If you think I'm being dramatic, I'm not. Day after day we have slogged through countless theoretical readings from the aforementioned "white-haired dudes with PhDs" with seemingly no end in sight. These readings, while informative and certainly telling of a dedication to betterment of the educational environment, have oftentimes seemed disconnected from any practical application. I have written about this phenomenon before, specifically in my final for CI 5441 (which I incidentally did not do too well on) - I can have all the theory I want shoved down my gullet, but at the end of the day it is my lived experiences and my human to human interactions that are going to define me in the classroom. Tom is right here - students aren't gonna care if I'm super articulate and effective teaching them about the intricacies of Shakespearian ...

For my first entry here this semester I wanted to write a bit about the piece that stuck out the most to me, which was the Heffernan & Lewison piece regarding Culturally Relevant Writing. Over the course of our, well, courses last semester we talked extensively about Critical Literacy and Culturally Relevant Pedagogy, and for whatever reason it did not even cross my mind to think that these same concepts could be applied to teaching writing and composition. The examples shown in the article showed just how powerful this exercise could be, and how this practice goes hand in hand with critical literacy. It is asked in the beginning of the article: “Could critical literacy practices shake up the writer’s workshop?” The answer, as it seems that they have found out, is absolutely. These practices can serve as an extension of critical literacy exercises, or even as a precursor to critical literacy itself. As illustrated in the article, going through the necessary steps that the teach...